Archangel Rafe (A Novel of The Seven Book 1) Read Free Page B

would be appalled at her physical appearance.
    She signed in at the front desk and then made her way through the halls. Her Nikes squeaked on the shiny, clean linoleum. The nurse, Gail, waved and smiled, her face lighting up with genuine happiness. “She’s having a good day, Angelina. She’ll be happy to see you.”
    “Thanks, Gail.” She handed the nurse a small bouquet of daffodils.
    “You look great.” Gail lifted the flowers to her nose. “New hair color?”
    “Uh, yeah, I added some highlights.” To prep for the support hearing. Gary was being a jerk about paying the career consultant for the testing. Which she wasn’t going to think about right now. Angelina headed down the hallway to Grammy’s room, the other bunch of daffodils clutched in her suddenly sweaty hand. She dreaded these visits.
    She wanted her Grammy back. The Grammy who told stories, fixed bread and tomato sandwiches, and let her lie around and read on sweltering summer afternoons. Grammy with the candy drawer, supposedly for the kids, but everyone knew she was the one with the sweet tooth. Grammy always looked perfectly put together, whether she was hanging out in the kitchen all day or going shopping and to lunch. Grammy who tended her flower garden with the care and precision of a general.
    Angelina knocked softly, in case she was sleeping.
    “Come on in, Angelina,” she called out in a warbled, shaky voice.
    “Hi Grammy.” She put the flowers in a fake Waterford vase on her night table and poured in a little of the water from the pitcher. She’d been moved to a private room last month. A plastic bin on the wall held her chart and all the accouterments of a hospital room.
    “Come. Sit, sit.”
    She eased into the chair next to the bed.
    Grammy peered at her, her once vibrant brown pupils lost in a rheumy, watery sea. “Somethin’s different.”
    Shouldn’t have worn jeans. Grammy hated them. “I was running late. I didn’t have time to change.”
    “I saw the dungarees. But that isn’t it. Somethin’ else.” She reached out her hand, thin with ropy veins and trembling as if she was an alcoholic who had gone without for a few days. Grammy clasped her hand, her skin a papery, frail husk, insubstantial against Angelina’s younger, more resilient skin. Grammy’s fingers curled slightly just like her body curved in to protect her fragile insides from attack.
    Her Grammy was an old-fashioned woman. She used to get her hair done once a week, washed, curled and teased into a poufy, yet feminine, cap of curls. To protect those teased curls while she slept, she wrapped her hair in a swath of toilet paper then pinned it closed with metal clips. And in the morning she’d carefully unwrap her ‘do, then fuss with the curls until she was ready for public.
    She always wore panty hose. She always wore full make-up: base, blush, eye shadow, mascara, eyebrow pencil and a bold shade of lipstick. Always. In this place, dressing up and cosmetics were long gone, discarded for more pressing concerns like food and medicine. And it broke Angelina’s heart.
    “How are you?” Grammy turned her hand over and leaned closer, so close Angelina feared she’d fall out of bed.
    “Careful.”
    There was a calm satisfaction in Grammy’s movement as she stroked her finger along the strangely shaped sunspot. “How does it feel?”
    That damned spot. Just one more reminder that life changed constantly. Her body included. Despair rolled over her in a wave. That spot represented all the things in her life that she couldn’t control. But now was not the time to wallow in self-pity. “How does what feel, Grammy?”
    She squeezed Angelina’s wrist right over the spot, then put her hands on her granddaughter’s face, along her cheekbones, and stared into her eyes. “You’ve replaced me.”
    “Grammy. No one could replace you.” Angelina smiled uneasily and tried to ease Grammy’s hands away, but her grip was like iron. The intensity of her regard and